The Castlegar Chamber of Commerce presented its annual report to Castlegar city council last week.
Both the chamber and the Castlegar & District Visitor Centre have seen growth over the last year.
“It is kind of like a one-stop-shop place — if people are travelling through, if they are looking for investment, if Castlegar citizens are looking for services, they can come to our place — which hosts the Chamber of Commerce, the Visitor Centre, Imagine Kootenay, Destination Castlegar, Community Futures and our new up-and-coming economic development program,” said the chamber’s executive director Tammy Verigin-Burke.
The chamber sees itself as a 311 for local businesses. “If we don’t know the answer to the question,” said Verigin-Burk, “we definitely know someone who can, so we can refer people.”
“We are proud of the innovations and programs we have created this year and we are excited to share them,” said Verigin-Burk.
The chamber also shared some of the results of its 2016 Business Walk, where business owners were visited and asked about how their businesses were doing.
Sixty per cent of businesses visited rated their current state as good or increasing. Forty-two percent said that finding employees was their biggest challenge. Only about 14 per cent of business owners stated that they plan to sell or retire in the next five years.
Chamber plans for 2017 include another business walk in June, BC Chamber of Commerce Large Industry Follow-up Survey/meeting with provincial government, Manufacturing Needs Study in partnership with the Nelson Chamber of Commerce, a fall workshop, a new speaker series featuring succession planning and theft prevention. The chamber is also continuing to work on plans for their new building.
The chamber’s Business After Business networking events have become so successful that 60 to 100 people attend each one.
The next chamber event is the West Kootenay Trade show coming up April 21-23, with over 100 vendors signed up.
“We are receiving some regional and provincial recognition, which tells us that we are getting ourselves on the map — not only do people in our area know about us, but people outside our area know about us and that is what is important to us, because that is the way we can start attracting people to come here and more investments,” concluded Verigin-Burk.
Visitor CentreDuring 2016, 14,085 visitors stopped by the office, up by 264 from the previous year. Of those visitors, 942 were interested in either investing in or moving to Castlegar. Numbers were up for visitors from B.C. and Alberta as well as the United States, Europe and Mexico.
Visitor inquiries about local attractions were also on the rise with hiking/biking/fishing topping the chart with 5,627. Sculpturewalk, the Station Museum and Zuckerburg Island all saw significant jumps in inquiries.
“You can see a steady climb in hiking, biking and fishing, … so many people come through our doors wanting to explore our beautiful backwoods and nature,” said tourism manager Anna Kaytor.
The visitor centre was one of 17 centres across B.C. asked to participate in a Destination BC visitor insight survey. The survey took place in November and December 2016.
The results showed a majority of visitors were stopping in Castlegar as part of a touring holiday with an average 1.8 day stop in Castlegar. The beauty of the area was first in the results of why people visit Castlegar with 31 per cent choosing it as their primary reason. Travelling through (27 per cent), visiting family or friends (18 per cent) and recreational purposes (13 per cent) were the next highest results.